you say you’ll be there
always
but never show
the forecast calls
for meteor showers
so I lay a blanket
in the park
clouds obscure
the view
I guess tiny streaks
across the sky
are not magnificent
I throw a penny
into a wishing
well
and call a séance
for my father
in my dining room
the dead
don’t leave
me
promises
on my voice
mail
(originally published in Erothanatos, Spring 2020)
I equate falsities with wheat; groves as tea-
leaves in lands of blue sun. I confuse distance
with fair weather– idols in my mind: the beach
or Joshua trees. Golden fields have I never tilled.
Toiled, yes, in my lugubrious way, driving through
vast swaths of America, pasteurized pastures often
teeming with cows. Thinking of scale, it is
impossible to be upset at mathematics. But
I do aim anger at trajectory. For years I had
my eyes closed, pointed at a spinning globe.
When I opened them, in Mom’s basement,
my feet were planted where I remembered.
(originally published in The Drunken Llama, Summer 2021)
a drone recording footage of
our cabin– if in the walls:
landlocked legs swinging
through the air in some
semblance of aerobics. finished
wood with trees climbing
architecture from first to third
floor, ticks of time rushing
beyond all stoppage,
mistletoe over the doors
& heads while everyone
sings songs of pretend
that nothing about us
will ever change.
(originally published in The Light Ekphrastic, Spring 2020)
ferns in memoriam
in the room of you
the four walls the plaster so what
we would have had a life
together not just be alive
together
so what
I’ve learned to lose the leaves
the old days
reminisce in new nostalgia
created from a new & better era
my body alcohol’s punching bag
but the nights! no straight-edge
James nerdy
yes but one that
lets me lets me lets me
grieve in the light
(originally published in In Parentheses, Spring 2020)
How long
to tolerate pain?
Many weeks
this cavity, severe,
this hole
turned wolf on me–
no more arguing
when they say go!
Problem is,
my philosophy’s
the way
the flag blows–
west to California,
no, east, no, Midwest
now. Transplant
for a transplant,
my flag flies stink
-bug, flatland,
swamp.
(originally published in Erothanatos, Summer 2021)
Kingsford
drinks from
furry pond
beside the catmansion
and I am ashamed–
little vestibule of living
as are we all this
needy, then,
these walls
the fringe
of
what we say is
is
what
we shoo away
(originally published in The Headlight Review, Spring 2020)
you invite me into a
hundred hungry dreamers
you / dis
mantling / dis
gusting
predator
of the light
(originally published in Goat’s Milk Magazine, Spring 2020)
was foolish to say we’re not at war
the migraine in my brain the same
as entering Iraq in high school
the virus lives and dies in us
the pandemic is not the protest
the protest is in living past
the stranger who pours milk
on your face to clear the tear
gas on streets people die on
(originally published in BREATHE, Spring 2021)
separate from the leaves and the grass
I am thinking about envy
bark peels
from mind where flies congregate
in a protest to The Man
The Man is a tree
he is (sadly) growing branches
inside the soft home of
soil grasps
beyond my fingernails when I play
violin songs grass likes to grow for
(originally published in Jam & Sand, Summer 2020)
I’m in bed an engine revs a motorcycle outside
someone on this street screams slow down
but I finish our pack of blueberries, I apologize
what for? We were both eating them. The small
sour ones. The large C-flat ones. Near the end
I say these kinda taste weird. You say they’re
very sweet. I apologize what for? Where I’m at
I can complain about such sweetness.
(originally published in impspired, Fall 2021)